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The Little Radio Station that Could: WHCP’s Mike Starling at Five Years Old

October 30, 2020 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

It’s hard to imagine now why it took the combined legislative clout of two presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama–opponents in the historic 2008 election–to make it possible for a low-power community radio station, like Cambridge’s WHCP 105.1 FM (if you can find it on your radio dial), to make its on-air debut.

The station, located on Race Street in the downtown historic district, celebrated its fifth anniversary with an online celebration in March. But WHCP’s Friday the 13th fundraiser that month was canceled by Gov. Larry Hogan’s COVID-19 lockdown order announced the day before. Timing challenges for founder/general manager Mike Starling and other low-power radio pioneers stretch back well before its January 2015 launch. But thanks to listeners’ support, broadcast equipment donated through a career’s worth of NPR connections, a staff of 50 volunteers and three paid professionals–Starling, program director Doug Scheutz and morning DJ Bruce Patrick–WHCP has become “a companion and a watercooler for thoughtful conversation. We’ve become infectious–in a good way,” Starling says with a laugh.

Among the volunteers, an eclectic ensemble of music lovers with diverse tastes ranging from big-band to Boomer greatest hits, are the “Sublime Nine” original on-air hosts who attended WHCP’s fifth-anniversary observance virtually. “They’re all still doing their shows for us,” Starling says, noting their passion and expertise. For instance, he cites Cheryl Campbell, an event planner who hosts “Celtic Crossroads” on weekends. “She’s now on an Intercoastal Waterway cruise,” Starling says. “Cheryl goes to the captain and says, ‘Hey, I need a little satellite time to send in my show on my Mac.’”

Drew Sheckler pulls double-duty with “Indy City,” in which he endeavors to discover music by new artists, and “JazzmaTazz,” which helps sate his other musical addiction. Meanwhile, Diane Marquette has a rule for her children, which Starling learned applies to him, too. “Do NOT call me when Jim’s show is on!” That would be 7 p.m. for “Swingin’ with Jim,” her husband. As Starling puts it, “Jim curates his show,” presenting the big-band sounds of Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, and the greats from the genre’s 1940s hey-day.

A relative newcomer, “Dr. Donna, a vet”–veterinarian Donna Flaggs of East New Market–“is into the blues,” Starling understates. The host of “Lady Spins the Blues” totes stacks of vinyl with her. “That’s why we have two turntables,” Starling says.

To fill the classical music niche, WHCP imports a Sunday program from North Carolina, “Concierto,” hosted by a bilingual DJ who introduces symphony hall selections in Spanish and English.

Overnight you can tune into the Grateful Dead marathon. “Raising the Dead” takes you to near dawn and morning programming anchored by “MidShore Wakeup with Bruce Patrick.”

Interspersed in WHCP’s 24/7 programming are community news and happenings featured on such shows as “Midshore Midday” and “Cambridge Conversations,” of which Starling says, “We just try to be a good conduit and stay out of the way.” That approach, he says, lets the word out, unfiltered. “Those are the real gems of what we do here,” he adds.

Chief among recent highlights was WHCP’s coverage of the unveiling of the traveling statue of Harriet Tubman and a young girl, presumably a slave she led to freedom. Wesley Wooford, who sculpted the nine-foot-high figurative depiction of flight from bondage, said of his subject, “I think [Tubman] is so symbolic of freedom in a way that just speaks across everything.” Wooford suggested that the scene–Tubman and the child in rapid stride–represented the instant “when she stepped over that state line” to freedom in Pennsylvania.

“I have to say how touched I was when the names [of Dorchester slaves] were being read,” said Circuit Administrative Judge Brett Wilson, who addressed those gathered for the Sept. 12 Day of Resilience unveiling. “It brings a tear to your eye because I imagine those names came from an inventory just like property. Now, we have the statue of Harriet Tubman on the Dorchester County Courthouse lawn, not a statue of the people who fought to keep her enslaved,” Wilson said in a thinly veiled reference to the Talbot Boys statue on the courthouse lawn in Easton. (The Tubman statue moved on earlier this month.)

Since COVID-19 shut down the station’s open-door, open-mic policy for community announcements, WHCP has turned, like others, to Skype and Zoom to “maintain the flow of content,” Starling says. In a particularly vital community service, he adds, “We looped the county health department into a series on Wednesdays about the evolving set of COVID guidelines. One on reopening schools drew 6,000 people to our broadcast and video-stream on Facebook and YouTube.”

Although WHCP, like other low-power community stations, is nonprofit, it carries messages by local businesses. “They’re not commercials,” says Starling. “These are acknowledgments of those who underwrite what we do here,” similar to what his NPR alma mater does.

As I tried to tune in from home in Easton to prepare for this story, the term “low power” became readily apparent. After futilely fumbling around on my alarm-clock radio, I backed my car out of the garage to capture the signal in my driveway. That’s because LPFM signals are limited to 100 watts. (Many lightbulbs match that wattage.) You can receive WHCP over the air only a few miles in any direction from downtown Cambridge. You can also listen online, available worldwide if you download an app or Foxfire as a web browser. But for technical reasons that Starling says will be fixed, such browsers as Google Chrome cannot link you to WHCP.

That WHCP exists at all recalls the high-powered fight on Capitol Hill over low-power radio dating back to the turn of the millennium. “There was teeth-gnashing by incumbent broadcasters,” Starling says, “mostly about signal interference,” which kept a bill from coming to a vote until 2010–even with McCain as a sponsor and Obama as a co-sponsor. Ultimately, Obama signed it into law as president in 2011.

By the time the station was ready to launch four years later, all that remained was to come up with four call letters. “The first three came naturally,” says Starling. “W, of course, and then HC, for Historic Cambridge. But I struggled with the fourth letter. Then Doug [Schuetz, program director] called me. ‘I’ve got it!… P! WHCP for We Help Cambridge Prosper.’

“And that became our mission.”

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information or to make a donation to WHCP please go here.

Steve Parks is a retired arts writer now living in Easton.

WHCP 101.5 FM

Studio call-in line: 443-637-6000

“Listen Live, Listen Virtual” community concert, noon-6 p.m. Oct. 31, whcp.org, streaming on Facebook and YouTube

Looking at the Masters: William Hogarth

October 29, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith Leave a Comment

William Hogarth was born and raised in London’s East End, a poor and rough part of London. His father was a failed Latin school master and writer who also failed at his other pursuits and spent four years in Fleet Prison for debtors. Hogarth and his mother had to hold the family together. At sixteen Hogarth was apprenticed to a goldsmith and was able to engrave images on coats of arm and booksellers plates. His drawing and engraving skills developed quickly. He was able to transition to making prints, and in 1720 he set up his own print shop. Hogarth’s knowledge of art came from his extensive study of European prints. He began attending drawing classes in 1724 at St. Martin’s Lane school in the home of Sir James Thornhill. Five years later he eloped with Thornhill’s daughter Jane. Theirs was a happy marriage, but they had no children.

Outgoing and personable, Hogarth enjoyed the social and intellectual life of London. His good friends included writers, musicians, liberal intellectuals, and actors. Among them was David Garrick, the famous actor, playwright, and theater manger of the Drury Lane Theatre. However, Hogarth’s childhood experiences and the struggles of the poor never left him. He walked the London streets observing and remembering everything. He told of his unique skill of “retaining in my mind’s eye without drawing on the spot whatever I wanted to imitate.” Hogarth knew the low life and the high society of London. His art, whether painting or prints, was satirical, comical, and critical of the morals of his time.

Hogarth not only was a portrait painter and printmaker but also was an extremely creative writer. He had much in common with English writers such as Samuel Johnson, Henry Fielding, Daniel Defoe, and Jonathon Swift; and he was a precursor to Charles Dickens. He is famous for his paintings that tell moral stories which he wrote. In “A Harlot’s Progress” (1730) (six paintings), Moll/Mary Hackabout, an innocent young country girl, comes to London looking for honest work and eventually ends up as a prostitute. “The Rakes Progress” (1731)(8 paintings) , tells of Tom Rakekwell, the handsome and lazy son of a rich merchant, who eventually looses all his money through gambling and other pursuits of pleasure and ends up in Bedlam, the insane asylum. As a result of the popularity of these paintings, Hogarth engraved them, thereby increasing their popularity by making them cheaper and readily available for sale.

“An Election Entertainment” (plate 1)

Hogarth’s “Humours of an Election” (1754-55) (40’’ x 50”) (4 paintings), was inspired by a local election in 1754 for a seat in Parliament in Oxfordshire. The race was between the conservative Tory and the liberal Whig parties, and was a popular topic of discussion in London newspapers, broadsheets, coffee houses, and bars. With the exception of a few historical references, Hogarth does not satirize specific people and events from the Oxfordshire election. Instead he sets the scenes in the imaginary town of Guzzledown, and he creates a host of both comic and satirical characters to illustrate vices such as bribery, intimidation, and mayhem, all widely associated with corruption in British elections.

“An Election Entertainment” (plate 1) depicts Whig party candidates on the left of a large table stretching horizontally across the room. The Mayor of Guzzledown is on the right. The horizontal table was intended to remind the viewer of da Vinci’s “Last Supper” and to make an obvious comparison and contrast. The Whig candidates, on the left, are putting up with unwanted attention from their constituents. The younger Whig candidate, blue coated and wearing the white wig, is tolerating the kiss of a large, ugly and possibly pregnant woman named Doll Tearsheet. A small child holds onto his hand and is stealing his ring, while a man standing behind him is trying to light his wig on fire. Seated next to him at the table, the other candidate in the grey wig and dark green coat is being hugged and breathed on by two old and probably drunken men.

An orange Tory campaign banner behind the Whig candidates declares “Liberty and Loyalty.” It has been stolen from the protestors outside. Various and sundry characters crowd the room talking, eating, and drinking. It is Hogarth at his best, and may remind the viewer of the bar scene in “Star Wars.” A small group of musicians in the center behind the table provide the entertainment. On the wall above them a painting of a royal has been slashed.

Outside the back window, and unfortunately hard for the viewer to see, an anti-Semitic Tory mob is carrying the effigy of a bearded Jew, labeled No Jews. The Whig government had recently passed a law allowing greater freedom for Jews that was unpopular with the Tories. The mob also carries bricks and staves which they throw through the window at the Whigs inside, and a few men inside throw furniture out the window at them. They carry two banners: “Liberty” and “Give us our Eleven Days.” This second banner refers to the adoption in 1752 of the Gregorian calendar which resulted on September 3, 1752, becoming officially September 14, 1752. They lost eleven days of their lives.

At the far right of the table, the town Major has become sick from over indulging in oysters. He is being bled as a cure. In the lower right hand corner, one of the bricks thrown from outside has hit the election agent attired in dark red, in the head; he has dropped his registry book and turned over a wine bottle. At front center another injured man is being treated by someone poring gin over his wound. In front a young boy makes punch in a barrel. There is always much left to discover in Hogarth’s works. This piece is the most discussed from the “The Election” series.

“Canvassing for the Vote” (plate 2)

Set outside of the Royal Oak Inn, which serves as Tory headquarters, “Canvassing for the Vote” (plate2) depicts both Whigs and Tories engaging in bribing, coercing and otherwise doing whatever it takes to get votes. Centered in the composition is the skeptical inn keeper being plied with money from both Whig and Tory. His hands are out of sight as he accepts money from each. Above his head is the inn’s sign, a gold framed sign depicting a Royal Oak and mostly covered by a temporary sign making fun of the Whigs. Punch, a character from the commedia dell’arte, pushes a wheelbarrow full of coins that he tosses to a crowd, one member of which looks like a witch. Next to them a Tory looks up and flirts with two young ladies on a balcony. Is he interested in votes or something else? Outside the door of the Inn, a large carved British lion eats a French fleur-de-lis. A soldier looks out the door. The military does not take sides in elections. To the two men at the right side of the painting are identified as sailors. They are smoking and playing a game with tiles. The distant scene on the right has been described as an anti-Semitic crowd.

“The Polling” (plate 3)

In “The Polling” (plate 3) voters are lining up to cast their vote. On a porch the Whig party sits behind an orange flag and the Tories behind a blue flag. One must go up the steps to the porch to vote. On the right side, a peg legged Whig voter is trying to vote by putting has hook on the book as he swears to his identity. His right to vote is being challenged; as the law says he must put his hand on the book to swear the oath, the metal hook is being questioned. Next to him, the Tories are bringing a mentally disturbed man to vote. Next in line, the Whig’s are bringing a dead man in his shroud to vote. In the background a carriage with the seal of Britannia on the door has broken down. The lady inside is furious. Oblivious to everything, the coach drivers are playing cards. This image has been interpreted as “emphasizing the message that political negligence and mismanagement have imperiled the nation.”

“Chairing the Member” (plate 4)

The Tories have won and they are pursuing the British tradition of “Chairing the Member” (plate 4). A parade of supporters follows behind the chair and others are feasting and celebrating in the building at the left. Unfortunately the new member is about to fall from the chair as the group encounters a pitched battle between a Tory supporter in the white shirt fighting with a Whig supporter with an orange cockade on his hat. The Whig is holding a chain attached to a black bear ridden by a monkey. Also blocking the path to the gate is a donkey laden with barrels. On top of the wall leading to the gate of the church, two chimney sweeps urinate on the monkey and the bear. The decorative sculpture usually found on top of a gate post is a skull and crossbones. Leading this strange group is a blind fiddler. The blind leading the blind is the obvious reference.

At the bottom left of this unique group, a sow and three piglets race across a brick bridge. This image has been recognized as referencing the miracle of the Gadarene swine from Matthew 8:28. Jesus and his disciples encounter half naked men who were possessed by demons. Jesus exorcises the demons, turning the men into swine at their request and they “ran violently down a steep place into the sea where they perished in the water.” Gadarene is defined as involving or engaging in a headlong or potentially disastrous rush to something. To complete the chaotic scene a goose flies directly over head of the new member. Is the goose cackling? In each scene in the series much is going on and there are clearly many references to circumstances of the times. The viewer does not need to understand Hogarth’s references to enjoy and appreciate his overall message. Hogarth’s works have been called modern moral subjects.

Often the center of controversy for obvious reasons, Hogarth pointed out problems and issues many would have preferred hidden. Hogarth also was a compassionate and concerned citizen. He brought to Parliament the issue of copyright. His prints were so popular they were being duplicated without his permission. The copyright law, called the Hogarth Act was passed in 1735. Yes, it protected his earnings but also benefited all artists. He followed in the footsteps of his first art teacher and established the St. Martin’s Lane Academy. It was one of the precursors to the Royal Academy.

Hogarth’s portrait of “Captain Coram” (1740) was celebrated in London as Coram was a noted philanthropist and founder of the Foundling Hospital in London. Hogarth was active in contributing to and promoting the hospital. When the building was completed in 1745, he persuaded a group of fellow artists to contribute paintings with uplifting subjects to decorate the building. This collection of paintings was the first public exhibition of contemporary art in London and proved to be a major step toward the founding of London’s Royal Academy of Art in 1768.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

The Spirituals Initiative with Kentavius Jones

October 28, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

When people on the Mid-Shore think of Kentavius Jones, the image of the former lacrosse star at Washington College turned professional musician is presumably the one that comes to mind. For more than twenty years, Kentavius has not only archived regional prominence with his live performances at almost every venue on the Eastern Shore, he’s been a passionate local advocate for art and music, including his support of the integration of the two forms as a trustee of the Academy Art Museum and countless other coalitions in the region.

But when the Spy heard that the singer-composer’s newest project was the celebration of historic spirituals music on the Eastern Shore, it was a delightful shock.

Noting with humor that classic spirituals can be found in his DNA, impacting both directly and indirectly his own music, Kentavius joined friends La Fleur Paysour, Richard Potter, John Wesley Wright, James Redman, and Barbara Paca in forming the Maryland Spirituals Initiative to celebrate this unique legacy and perform that music in some of the Shore’s most historic places and buildings in African-American history.

The Spy talked to Kentavius Jones at the Spy studio last week to learn more.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about the Maryland Spirituals Initiative please go here.

Random Thoughts Before the Election by J.E. Dean

October 28, 2020 by J.E. Dean Leave a Comment

It’s been a long two years since the 2020 election got underway. Now the light is at the end of the tunnel. Absent truly unforeseen events, a new President will have been elected a week from now. The outcome may not yet be certified, but it looks like the blue wave some of us have been hoping for and others dreading is about to crest.

Pollsters tell us that nearly everyone who will vote has either already voted or chosen a candidate, in some cases months ago. I am in both categories. I am so over Trump that if Biden shot someone on Fifth Avenue, I might still vote for him. Call it Trump Denial Syndrome (TDS) if you like, but I don’t owe Trump another chance to be a President that I can respect. I do owe it to my fellow citizens to help escort Trump and his family out of the White House.

But this column is not about why Trump is bad or why Biden is good. It’s about the future. Truth be told, while a Trump loss is good, it may be a mistake to celebrate too soon. What a Biden-Harris administration will look like isn’t clear. Many things, some good and some bad, might lie ahead.

With that thought, here are a few things on my mind.

Will Biden be a centrist President? I hope he will. If he attempts to implement the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren agenda, he could start to lose support pretty quickly. How many people do you know who supported Biden to move the country radically left? In my case, it’s a minority. Many, many Biden supporters are simply anti-Trump. And some of those actually support Trump’s tax, trade, and regulatory policies. They just concluded he was crazy and unfit to be President.

I will be watching Biden’s early actions closely. Who will he appoint to the cabinet and other top posts? What will be in his coronavirus relief bill?

Will Democrats try to pack the Supreme Court? I hope not. Doing so would create a terrible precedent and make the Court a political appendage of Congress rather than a co-equal third branch of government. The expedited confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett doesn’t justify undermining the Constitution. Two wrongs don’t make a right. If the Democrats end up with the Presidency, the House and the Senate, that is enough.

Will Biden spend the country into a period of inflation or something worse? The Biden transition team is already working on another trillion-dollar stimulus bill. The legislation is likely to be enacted within a month or so after Biden takes office. That will be a good thing. The country is in economic crisis. But will that spending, combined with the likely spending on some of Biden’s domestic policy agenda—things like part of the Green New Deal, health care reform, and education (including student loan forgiveness)—create inflation? I hope not, but I don’t know. I’ve been reading The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton. The book is about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). The author suggests that the government can engage in massive spending without inflation if that spending supports economic activity. Interesting, while I support a strong response to today’s economic crisis, I hope Biden and the Democrats don’t go overboard. I also have a lot to learn about MMT.

How much worse will the pandemic get before it gets better? Note that I didn’t ask whether the pandemic would get worse. We already know that infections are rising across the country. The new President will hopefully do a better job than Trump. (It would be difficult to do worse.) I expect Dr. Fauci to play a prominent leadership role going forward. That is a good thing. I also expect Biden to continue to urge people to practice social distancing and mask-wearing. There will be fewer infections, deaths, and additional economic disruption under Biden than there would have been under Trump.

Will we see the nation’s first virtual inauguration? I would say probably. Biden will not want to start his Presidency with a Superspreader event. Smart. I plan on attending.

How will Biden hold up over four years? Biden is 77 years old. Recall those pictures of Presidents on their first inauguration day and on the day they leave office. For most Presidents, the job is a difficult, stressful one. Most Presidents don’t have time for hundreds of rounds of golf. Trump’s record will be safe during the Biden years. But the real issue here is how a President as old as Biden will do given the demands of the job. Will he simply delegate away a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities? If so, to whom? And, as much as none of us want to think about it, what if his health declines? Recall that Ronald Reagan evidenced early signs of dementia in his second term. I’m worried about this issue. I don’t think its unpatriotic to think about it. I hope that Biden and the team he is assembling are thinking about it.

Who is Kamala Harris? We are learning a lot about Senator Harris fast. She is considered to be the most liberal Senator. That disturbs me a bit, but she has only been in the Senate four years. Notably, Harris endorsed the Biden platform painlessly. That suggests she may be more of a pragmatist than she is given credit for. If she sees the whole country as her constituency as vice president, rather than California, that will be the case.

What is the future of the Republican party? I am among those who believe that Trump has killed the Republican party. Anytime the first thing you think of when you hear the word “Republican” is “racist” or “criminal,” the GOP is in trouble. What type of party will emerge from the mess Trump created? Will we see a return of the “country club Republicans” associated with Gerald Ford and Eisenhower? Will the right-wing of the party take over entirely? I don’t know. If the right wing takes over, it’s time for moderates to start figuring out how to form a new party, one built around civility, free trade, civil rights, reasonable regulation, and other “traditional Republican values.”

Will Trump, his family and his allies be prosecuted? Importantly, the decision on whether Donald Trump gets prosecuted for things like tax and insurance fraud is not entirely in the hands of Joe Biden. More than one State Attorney General is likely to indict him. Personally, I hope Trump is treated like anyone else. If he committed the crimes he has been accused of, he deserves to be prosecuted. I expect Biden feels the same way. We already know that State prosecutors are waiting in the wings. Trump could be under indictment in New York before the end of Spring.

We are on the cusp of a new era of government—the Biden-Harris era. It will be more civil, somewhat boring, and, hopefully, largely tweet-free. I’m ready for it.

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant. For more than 30 years, he advised clients on federal education and social service policy.

Time in a Bottle by Jamie Kirkpatrick

October 27, 2020 by Jamie Kirkpatrick 5 Comments

It’s a sobering thought but I’ve reached the point in my life where I can count time in half centuries. To wit, it was fifty years ago almost to the day that I arrived in Tunisia. I was on my way to becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer: the first six weeks of my service had been spent in intensive language and cross-cultural training in America. For the next six weeks, I would be in total language immersion in my new host country. Did I mention that was fifty years ago? Sigh.

Looking back, those fifty years have flown by. Four of them were spent in Tunisia, the first two in the Kasserine, a small town in the rugged mountains hard by the Algerian border and famous for a pivotal battle in World War II. Then there were two more years in Tunis, the country’s capital, working on the Peace Corps staff. Next came two years in Boston at grad school, a lost year in Pittsburgh working in a bank (not my “thing”), then finally on to Washington where I came into myself, first as a manager of international non-profit organizations, then as a teacher, college counselor, and coach at a boys’ school. Along the way, there were children (two), marriages (two), and eventually grandchildren (six). There have been ups and downs, highs and lows, wins and losses. In a word: life.

We never know how much time we’ll have. If you’re inclined to count day by day, who knows when the string will run out. But if, like me, you pretend the passing years somehow aren’t accumulating, then one day you wake up and look back at fifty years—half a century!—of living and loving, succeeding and failing. You’re stunned, ambushed by time in a sneak attack marked by sudden aches and pains, a frequent urge to nap, and an impending sense of doom, probably not unlike what those ancient mariners felt when they sailed out to the edges of the known world, always wondering what really lay over the sharp edge of the horizon.

Counting in decades and then by a century’s half portion makes one justifiably pensive. When you’re young, there’s not much time for reflection. Life’s busy, impulsive; you move along life’s tow path, briefly noting the mile markers along the way but not paying all that much attention to what they’re telling you. Then, all of a sudden, you realize that you’re closer to the finish line than you are to the starting point. The descent becomes more slippery with every step. Where once you were care-free, now you’re cautious. But guess what: as your pace slows and you’re forced to watch where you put your foot, you begin to see more. Details, once blurry or even unnoticed, come into sharper focus. Friendships run deeper. Moments ignored become moments appreciated, even savored. Fifty years ago, I would have scoffed at the notion, but now, even in decline, life is sweeter, more distilled, more precious.

I’m sure there will come a time when, like Dylan Thomas, I’ll rage, rage against the dying of the light, but for now, I’m content to live in twilight time. I know I won’t see another half century, but the one I have seen has been mostly kind and patient. That young kid who headed off to the Peace Corps in Tunisia fifty years ago is by and large content with the man he has become. With any luck, there’s still a little more time in this bottle.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Snapshots of Daily Life: Cardinals

October 25, 2020 by George R. Merrill Leave a Comment

The cardinal from hell is back. This time, he’s assaulting my studio windows.

Many years ago, I had a disturbing experience with a cardinal. He became obsessed with the rear-view mirrors of my car. Every day he would fly at them, pecking furiously at the mirror while leaving his droppings down the side of my car. What was he doing? Was he attacking what he saw in the mirror as if it were his adversary or had he fallen in love with his own Image and, like Narcissus, lavished it with pecks and kisses? After a while he finally gave up and that ended the matter. In the meantime, he’d left a dreadful mess on my car. I was furious.

In my studio recently, I heard a noise at the window. Would you believe it was a cardinal attacking or ravishing the window exactly as I’d seen happen years ago with my car mirrors? What does one do? He would not stop. The light struck the window such that the window was able to reflect his image, like a mirror. I thought the only thing I could do was to somehow put something over the window so that there would be no reflection.

Taking several sheets of paper on which I had old research material written, I taped the papers on the window, effectively blocking the reflection. That way I hoped he would lose interest in the window. I inadvertently left a small section of the window uncovered and sure enough he went for it and began his combative assaults, or was he abandoning himself to his passions. I never knew which

I was determined to put an end to this outrageous behavior. I went outside again with more paper, and taped additional pages on all of the places at the window where I thought he would be able to see his image. After taping them up, I went back into the house. I stayed there, undisturbed for several hours. I knew that I’d successfully driven him off. I had put an end to this unnatural behavior. I went outside just to check to see how secure the pages were.

I noticed for the first time the nature of the research material I had written on the several sheets of paper. The material contained data I’d collected on the history of cathedrals.

I am a member of Trinity Cathedral here in Easton. There had been increasing interest in the diocese in reviewing the place and function of a cathedral in the religious and social life of the twenty first century. What new functions might cathedrals have in today’s changing society. I did some research on how cathedrals evolved and what role they played in English, French, Spanish and more recently in American societies.

Cathedrals have occupied a significant place in medieval social and religious life. As the Church of England spread its influence here on the shore, Trinity Cathedral here in Easton was the Shore’s first and only Cathedral. I am a communicant, there.

Cathedrals today are visual remnants of the power and wealth that Christianly once enjoyed. The majestic aura of cathedrals that once awed Christians and others as well, had mystical significance, to be sure, but were also monuments to power and prestige. They remain an awesome sight today and people the world over, religious or not, travel to see them, simply because they are magnificent structures. I myself was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Sadly, many cathedrals have become increasingly museum pieces, valued for their architectural magnificence, but not venerated for the divine vision that inspired them.

I had since lost interest in my research and doubted whether I’d ever apply what I’d learned to anything useful. I tucked the papers away planning to use the blank sides for scrap paper.

Only much later did it occur to me that cardinals (clerics) are regular visitors to cathedrals. They go in and out of them all the time. Cardinals belong there. They perform many of the ritual and liturgical rites of Christianity. What had not occurred to me until I recognized the subject of the papers I’d placed on the windows, was how, in a sense, I was using my investigation into one kind of cardinal’s habitation, to drive another kind away from my own. Like a homeopathic physician, I was administrating to myself a modified dose of the toxin attacking me, in order to mitigate its debilitating effects.

Of course, cardinals, the ones with wings, are not literate. The cardinal attacking my windows would have no way of knowing anything about the subject of the documents that were frustrating his access to my studio windows. While the irony of this may well have been lost on this cardinal, it was not lost on me. Where the papers ended up may have been an ignominious end to my noble research endeavors. They were covered with bird droppings. I took some comfort in the thought that at least my efforts were not totally in vain. They found a use.

I normally associate a cardinal (cleric) with heavenly preoccupations. This cardinal hammering at my studio windows, was surely from hell. It’s worth noting how traditional satanic images appearing in masks and paintings, will portray the devil as bright red . . . like a cardinal.

There are cardinals and there are cardinals.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

Delmarva Review: El Salvador by Marvin Jonathan Flores

October 25, 2020 by Delmarva Review Leave a Comment

Author’s Note: The poem draws largely from my first visit to El Salvador in 1986. While much has changed in the ensuing years, much remains the same, and today everywhere you look evidence abounds of a country disfigured by years of war, political intrigue and national unrest. And yet there is something special, heroic even, in the national character of the campesino who bears it all with a simple dignity that makes of life an enduring song.

Marvin Jonathan Flores is a first generation American whose parents emigrated from El Salvador during the Salvadoran civil war. He began writing at the age of nineteen, shortly after his best friend died in a car accident. Flores currently resides near Washington D.C. in Falls Church, Virginia, where many of his stories and poems take place.

Delmarva Review was pleased to publish “El Salvador” in its 2019 edition. Authors like Flores give discerning readers a human perspective of a country’s culture often missing from the headlines. Delmarva Review’s thirteenth annual edition will publish on November 1 with the best of original new poetry and prose, from sixty-four writers, chosen from thousands of submissions during the year. For more information, see the website: www.DelmarvaReview.org.

The Only Relevant Question After the Debate by Craig Fuller

October 23, 2020 by Craig Fuller 3 Comments

The final debate of the Presidential campaign….and, the winner is? Kristen Welker, the moderator! She actually managed to moderate a discussion of sorts.

The key question to ask, after watching the debate or hearing the news reports, are you more inclined to vote for Donald Trump?

Going into the debate, I know of no poll suggesting the momentum had shifted. Polls tell us where voters are at the moment; and, at the moment a decisive majority of voters have trended to Joe Biden.

All the Trump campaign can do is wake up this morning and seek opportunities in key states.

However, to create an opportunity for Trump, voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Iowa, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida and even Texas would have to had seen something about President Donald Trump to encourage them to support his reelection. Only time will tell whether this final debate made a difference in these key states.

There is a good deal of talk about how 48 million people have already voted. Truth is, that really is not all that relevant. Those voters had already made up their mind and it is highly unlikely that anything in last night’s debate would have moved them in a new direction. For most people, the discussion probably reinforced their views going into the evening.

What is important, is how many people go out and vote this weekend. If the numbers are high, it would suggest that people waited for the last debate and then decided. I would not be surprised to see early voting growing.

One other challenge for President Trump. While millions of people watched the debate and the follow on press coverage, millions will also watch President Trump’s performance this Sunday evening on 60 Minutes. And, thanks to the decision by President Trump to release his video of the interview, we know how that will go. And, there is no chance the 60 Minutes version of the interview will be better than the Trump video. What is clear is that most of the interview was a verbal battle over whether the President has a health care plan and on just how damaging Hunter Biden might be to his father’s campaign.

Health care is an important issue, but after watching the 60 Minute interview, Lesley Stahl will repeatedly remind people that the President has no health care plan. And, to the extent the President spends time trying to advance a Hunter Biden story, he is, in my opinion, dwelling on a topic few care to understand and even fewer will be moved by when it comes to their vote. Even on the President’s video, on neither topic did he look particularly strong.

So, the two major media events in the final days of the campaign stand little chance of moving the needle much when it comes to the electorate. In the end, the outcome surely hinges on something as old as elections themselves, voter turnout. If you care about how this election turns out, go out and vote!

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and run public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore.

The Debate Showed How the Race Hardened by Al From

October 23, 2020 by Al From Leave a Comment

Presidential debates are usually overhyped and under-impactful. And Thursday night’s second debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was no exception.

The President certainly behaved better in the second debate than he did in the first debate – and that probably calmed some jittery Republican nerves. And, Joe Biden performed competently, allaying fears among some of his supporters of a race-changing gaff.

But the major takeaway from the debate was that few, if any, minds were changed. Clearly, the debate showed how the race has hardened. If you have already voted for Biden or intend to vote for him, you thought he won the debate. Same for Trump, if you have already voted for him or intend to vote for him, you likely thought he won the debate.

In other words, what you thought about the candidates and the race before the debate is what you thought after watching it.

CNN did a snap poll after last night’s debate. Its sample included 32 percent Democrats and 31 percent Republicans, which is slightly more Republican than most surveys which show a 4- or 5-point Democratic advantage in party identification. But as the chart below shows the debate hardly changed favorability ratings of the candidates at all.

As to whom viewers thought won the debate, the CNN poll tracked where the race now stands in the head-to-head polling. Fifty three percent thought Biden won the debate. That’s almost identical to the 52.1 percent who said they support him in today’s FiveThirtyEight average of national polls. Thirty nine percent thought CNN that Trump one the debate, within margin of error distance of his 42.3 percent support in the FiveThirtyEight polling average. (See chart below)

The bottom line is this: Thursday night’s debate didn’t change many minds. Rather it showed that the race has hardened. Both Biden and Trump supporters appear dug in. That’s obviously good news for Biden who is comfortably ahead.

With 11 days left and tens of millions having already voted, it will take a cataclysmic event to change the trajectory of the race. Expect President Trump to do everything he can to create that cataclysmic event. So, hold on for a wild ride.

Al From is an adjunct professor at the Krieger School at Johns Hopkins University. He is founder of the Democratic Leadership Council and author of The New Democrats and the Return to Power, featured in the documentary film, Crashing the Party.

Post-Debate by Al Sikes

October 23, 2020 by Al Sikes Leave a Comment

This column was finished several days ago but held because of last night’s debate. Believing the debate offered no fresh insights, these are my pre- and post-debate views.

Writing about politics is discouraging and unnerving. Unnerving, because we live in a time of rhetorical trip-wires. Words and phrases that seem descriptive turn out to be somehow insulting.

Discouraging, because few writers go beyond Donald Trump’s latest outrage, which is, of course, simply a repetition of a long established pattern of conduct. Trump loves it.

Recall P. T. Barnum who was once interviewed by a woman who told him that she was writing a book, and that it would contain something disagreeable about him. “No matter, madam,” was his reply, “say anything you like about me, but spell my name right — P. T. B-a-r-n-u-m, P. T. Barnum — and I’ll be pleased anyway.” Quote Investigator

One benefit to living in Maryland is that the candidates don’t target the State with advertisements. The State is taken for granted—too bad. If it weren’t for yard signs—dueling shout-outs—you could almost forget we will soon be electing a President. Yet, how nice it is to escape much of the harsh manufactured rhetoric.

There was a time several decades ago when I was deeply involved in elective politics—fortunately a more benign version. During that time, I learned polling analysis under the watchful eye of Bob Teeter, who was then one of the preeminent Republican pollsters.

One of Bob’s observations was that late campaign momentum usually ran to the candidate’s ceiling. The numerical ceiling was composed of those who were simply not open to the momentum candidate’s appeal. My sense is that President Trump now has the momentum as he campaigns, not for his vision, but against the amalgamation of leftist causes earlier associated with Senator Bernie Sanders.

But for Mr. Trump there is an unwelcome question—what is the ceiling? My sense is that it is too low for him to win. Unpopular as this view might be, I predict Biden will win because Trump lost.

While it will be claimed there is now an obligation for a Biden presidency to pursue a Leftist agenda, he will do so at considerable peril. Joe Biden’s finishing momentum in the Democratic primaries was a reflection of Senator Sander’s electoral ceiling. A majority of Democrats didn’t buy his agenda and Biden was the alternative.

If Biden wins, the result, in my view, will be loud and clear. There is a critical mass that, regardless of policy positions, wants decency back in the White House. One notable characteristic of most Trump supporters, past and present, is that while they support many of his policies, they are embarrassed by his conduct.

Joe Biden is campaigning on “decency” and the related theme of uniting Americans. I anticipate that these overriding themes and the President’s inability to control his self-love will prevail.

But, back to the race as I know it today. In a sense, the “decency” part will be relatively easy—the bar is embarrassingly low. The uniting part is going to be difficult. If Biden is true to the theme, he will reject 20th century socio-economic theories, their costs and failures.

We live in the artificial intelligence (AI) century—databases and machine learning are game changers. Google and Amazon prove the change every single day in most of our lives. Intelligent systems both know us and can shape and distribute messages that influence our lives.

This capability comes with dangers and opportunities. But, on the opportunity side, intelligent systems must be conceived, built, shaped and led by people whose knowledge of these systems began at elementary school age. Trump and Biden were elementary school age in the 1940s and 50s.

The pandemic has been instructive on several levels. One word is used over and over to define remedial policies—efficacy. Efficacy means: “capacity for producing a desired result or effect; effectiveness.” While some words are being canceled, “efficacy” should be promoted. Broadly speaking, as we tackle persistent problems that we have the capacity to prevent, 21st Century tools intelligently deployed can overcome problematic inertia. Structural change is needed, not more 20th Century program overlays.

Maybe, starting in elementary school, the word efficacy should be taught, as commonly used and understood words and phrases help shape society. Left, Right and Center should begin to demand efficacy; after all it is our money that is being spent and our children and grandchildren are going to have to pick up the debt tab. Unrealizable political promises deplete; we certainly don’t need more depletion.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.

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